Steve Ballmer's letter to team on Sinofsky departure — We've just learned that Windows chief Steven Sinofsky has left Microsoft, less than a month after the Windows 8 and Microsoft Surface launch. Here's what CEO Steve Ballmer had to say about the executive departure …

Murder Suspect John McAfee: I'm Innocent — As Belizean police combed the property of expat antivirus pioneer John McAfee Sunday afternoon, McAfee was closer than they could have known. He'd seen them coming, and says he hid — burying himself in the sand with a cardboard box over his head so he could breathe.

Loosecubes shuts down after raising $7.8 million in June — Loosecubes, the New York-based co-working startup, has shut down its operations, according to a cryptic blog post on its site. In June, the company raised $7.8 million in venture backing from New Enterprise Associates, Accel Partners …

Apple's 2012 Holiday Gift Guide goes live — Apple's Holiday Gift Guide just went live as part of the online Apple Store. The new page, which breaks down gifts by product line, catalogs the best of the Apple Store which Apple also notes offers free shipping on all products.

Apple Gives In to Employee Perks — CEO Tim Cook Pushes Employee-Friendly Benefits Long Shunned by Steve Jobs — When it comes to keeping employees happy, Apple Inc. appears to be taking some inspiration from Google Inc. — Earlier this year, Apple told some employees about a new initiative called …

The iPad Mini and the cost of Retina — The iPad Mini is a conflicted product. — It's much better than the iPad 3 and 4 to handle, carry, and hold up during use. It has the best external design of any iPad to date. It runs cooler than the iPad 3 or 4, it has almost the same battery life despite …

Transparency Report: Government requests on the rise — We think it's important to shine a light on how government actions could affect our users. When we first launched the Transparency Report in early 2010, there wasn't much data out there about how governments sometimes hamper the free flow of information on the web.

Microsoft and Google financials could surface at trial — (Reuters) - Microsoft and Google's Motorola Mobility unit are set to square off on Tuesday at a trial with strategic implications for the smartphone patent wars and which could reveal financial information the two companies usually keep under wraps.

Facebook Tests Ranked Comments to Boost Engagement — Facebook is testing a new comments format on brand and subscriber pages by placing the most engaging comments up higher on posts, the company confirmed on Monday. — “We are testing a new format for comments on Page posts,” Facebook said in a statement to Mashable.